Marital Challenges

This week we talked about marriage transitions. I thought it was really interesting since I am getting married in a couple of months and it was a good lesson to help me prepare for the changes that are going to occur after I get married. I think it is a good thing that we are learning to work together right now in times of stress because we are learning how to cope with it and work together when times are hard. I think this will prepare us for when something in life comes and knocks us down because we will know what it is like to work together and not be stressed.

Love

I thought it was perfect that we talked about "Falling in Love" the day before Valentines Day. In our preparation for this class period we were supposed to define love. This was a lot harder to do than I thought it would be. There are so many different definitions you could have. I came up with a few.

-Willing to do anything for someone and giving up anything to make them happy under the proper circumstances
-Willing to give everything to see them happy
-Tender unconditional affection
-A warm blanket being wrapped around my body

Then we went over the 4 different greek words that all translate to love.

• Storge=the kind of love found in the affection between parents and their children.
• Philia= the kind of love that exsists between friends. (highest form of love to the greeks)
• Eros= we get eros from the word erotic and this is the love between a man and woman (it includes sexual love, but it is more than a desire for sex and is more than lust)
• Agape= love that is dependent of one's feelings for another.

Then we discussed what kind of love you should have when you get married and as we discussed this it became important that we have all 4 kinds of love between our spouses and ourselves.

Divine Roles of Men & Women

I know that I already posted this on this weeks discussion board, but I just want to restate again how I feel about this particular subject.

I love learning about this topic. I remember in my prep for marriage class last semester we also spent two days discussing this. There are so many great talks and information from general authorites. I love this quote by Elder James E. Faust. “The Lord values his daughters just as much as he does his sons. In marriage, neither is superior; each has a different primary and divine responsibility”. I love how he says that men and women are equal and how he says that we both have different and divine responsiblities. Our gender has always existed. We do not really understand the differences that we both have, but they were divinely appointed to us. Women are the nurturers. Men the providers. For as long as I can remember I have been taught the importance of becoming a mother. It is my divine responsiblity. Today in the world these roles and responbilities can get so intertwined and confused. I am not saying it is a bad thing if the mom goes to work, but I know that if she can stay home with the kids she should stay home with the kids. I am engaged and my fiance grew up in a completely different family then I did. I had a stay at home mom and my dad went to work everyday to provide for my family. Both of his parents worked full time jobs are were rarely home. He had a nanny. I have always been taught the importance of the mom being in the home and so this was a bit of a shock to me. It was a little awkward at first because he expected me to do just what his mother did and I have always planned on doing what my mother did. I think that if his mother was in the home more while growing up, he would not have gone through some of the stuff he did. I am not saying that moms that go to work are destroying their kids in anyway. I just believe that we should do that we need to do in order to help our families out as best we can. Yes, I do believe that men and women are different for a reason and because of that reason men and women become complementary to one another.

 

This is one of my favorite stories about this topic:

 

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, “What happened here today?” She again smiled and answered, “You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?” “Yes” was his incredulous reply. She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it."